"I hate to see the money that is supposed to go to Hawaiian children going to other people, but I don't question these legal eagles because they know what they are doing. My whole feeling is that (Pauahi's) will stated a desire and no one should question it. ... It would be like if your grandma left you money for a certain something and someone else is questioning it. That's wrong, and it's stealing."

Sandra Haskell of Volcano, whose son is a seventh-grader at the Kea'au campus

"According to Pauahi's will, (Kamehameha Schools) is to educate children of Hawaiian ancestry, and it should be followed. ... Hawaiians don't have that many opportunities."

Cerie Kamaunu, 36, administrative assistant, Hau'ula

"Sometimes it's hard for minorities to find a place in education, and it's good to have a school that supports them in that regard. It's a good policy that it's a school for people with Hawaiian blood, and I think it should be kept that way."

Steven Warne, 53, Kailua

"I really think Kamehameha Schools has been experiencing more than its share of negativity over the last probably 10 years, with the trustees as well as with the students and enrollment, and I prefer to have them just be left alone. They're doing a good thing up there."

Sasha Springer Asato, administrative assistant, Kailua

"I'm actually torn. With the history of the civil rights movement on the Mainland, it's sort of the opposite happening here. On the one hand, I don't think that there should be discrimination, but on the other hand ... I understand that there's a difference in having a native Hawaiian curriculum and having extra opportunities for Native Hawaiians in Hawai'i."

Farrah Greene, 31, psychology graduate student, downtown Honolulu

"Kamehameha Schools is for the Hawaiians. I think that's the goal. Let the Hawaiians have something no one else has."

Adam Killermann, irrigation consultant, Hanapepe, Kaua'i

"In theory, I don't think there's anything wrong with a privately funded trust that goes for any (group), whether it's Catholics or Muslims or women or men or Hawaiians. It's no different than an all-boys school or an all-girls school for me."

Leslie Niebuhr, 37, producer for advertising agency, Kailua

"Already it's hard to get in. People in the Hawaiian community have to compete to get in. They provide a lot of scholarships. You know Hawaiians are at the bottom of the economic totem pole. The harm would be much less choice for people in the Hawaiian community (if the school lost the lawsuit)."

Mike Aki, contractor, Lawa'i, Kaua'i, has four children who attended Kamehameha Schools

"I don't like the idea of not winning the case for Native Hawaiians, but I do like the idea of settling the case, thereby giving OHA and Hawaiian Homes an opportunity to work with Congress and prepare for the next lawsuit against us and Kamehameha Schools. It buys us the time that we need to prepare. The other option would have been risking the Supreme Court taking this case, and had that happened, there's not an attorney I know who would have placed money on winning the case for Kamehameha Schools. It would have been a complete and utter disaster for the Hawaiian people, because not only would the school lose, but Hawaiian Homes, OHA and every Hawaiian agency in Hawai'i would necessarily have been sucked up into this lawsuit."

Boyd P. Mossman, OHA trustee and retired Circuit Court judge, Pukalani, Maui. Mossman, a 1961 Kamehameha graduate, is on the Maui Campus advisory group.

"I'd rather they settle with money than by breaking the princess' will. ... (But) will they have to keep paying people off?"

Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr., Hawaiian cultural specialist, Pukalani, Maui

"I would have liked to see them go further, but I can understand why they settled. But for me, are we now going to face someone else coming forward (and suing)?"

Iris Mountcastle, Wailuku, whose son is a sophomore at the Maui Campus

Staff writers Jan TenBruggencate, Christie Wilson and Lynda Arakawa contributed to this report.